Wolfram Function Repository

Instant-use add-on functions for the Wolfram Language

Function Repository Resource:

 NearEqualPartition

Source Notebook

Partition a list into roughly equal lengths

Contributed by: Jon McLoone

ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"][list,n]

partitions list into n nonoverlapping sublists of near-equal length.

Details and Options

When the length of list is divisible by the number of partitions n, all the returned lists will be equal in length. In other cases, ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"] maximizes the length of the smallest partition.

Examples

Basic Examples (3) 

Partition a list into three non-overlapping sublists:

In[1]:=
ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"][Range[11], 3]
Out[1]=

When the list cannot be partitioned in equal lengths, the first sublists are the longest:

In[2]:=
ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"][Range[10], 3]
Out[2]=

When the length of the list is divisible by the partition count, all lists are the same length:

In[3]:=
ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"][Range[9], 3]
Out[3]=

Properties and Relations (2) 

No elements of the input are discarded and no extra elements introduced, so for a one-dimensional list the inverse operation is Flatten:

In[4]:=
Flatten[ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"][Range[11], 3]]
Out[4]=

The lengths of the sublists should not differ by more than 1:

In[5]:=
Length /@ ResourceFunction["NearEqualPartition"][Range[11], 3]
Out[5]=

Publisher

Jon McLoone

Version History

  • 1.0.0 – 27 March 2020

Related Resources

License Information